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With a live show coming up in just a little over a month, rehearsals have begun in full swing. Some of the songs in this concert they've never performed on stage before, so Eli had had to create new dances for them. Now that they've all had time to commit them to memory, all nine of them have gathered up to do a run-through of the choreography. They're not worried about singing for now -- instead, they let the recording play in the background as they focus on the dancing alone. Eli watches all the way throughout, commenting on each girl's performance and pointing out unsatisfactory areas. ("Rin, don't swing your arm up that high!" "Nico, your turn is too slow!") Nozomi smiles a little to herself as she listens to her voice, even when Eli calls for her to stand up straighter, and not fall behind. Eli's very good at being authoritative.

They get through the group dances first, then move on to the units, and finally, pairs. The very last song on the list is Glass Garden, and Eli resigns from her position in the peanut gallery, and joins Nozomi in the center of the roof. Nozomi offers her a grin. From her spot near the CD player, Rin announces "Okay, ready!", and when they respond in kind, hits play.

They've practiced it well, Nozomi thinks. There's a bit of tension to the choreography, like a fear of coming too close for too long -- but then, it might very well be all in her imagination. Regardless, Eli is as graceful and poised as ever, and at the end of it, Nozomi feels they did a pretty good job.

Honoka applauds. The others, though, don't appear as enthusiastic.

"Mmm... somehow, it's a little..." Kotori begins, but doesn't quite have the heart to finish the sentence. Thankfully, Umi picks it back up for her: "Wrong! Totally wrong! It doesn't capture the feeling of the song at all!"

"Right?" Nico chimes in. "The choreography blew! Eli, you were stiff as a pole! A song like that's gotta have appeal, you know? It needs on-stage chemistry! Without it, there's no point at all!"

Nozomi looks to Eli with a sheepishly raised brow. Maybe it wasn't just her imagination, then.

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Eli stands rigid in the silence after Nozomi's question. She could've sworn hours went by.

Ah, of course Nozomi's felt it too. She's never been as good as Nozoomi at hiding how she felt. And apparently she'd been doing an even worse job than she thought.

"I didn't... hate it..." She starts quietly, eyes cast downward. "But I was... uncomfortable. That song, and what happened... aren't you uncomfortable too?"

Nozomi laughs, but it doesn't sound believable even to her own ears. "Don't be silly!" she responds, forcibly injecting chipperness into her tone. "It's just a song. I made Umi-chan write it because I thought it'd be funny, remember? Everyone knows it doesn't really have anything to do with us."

Just voicing the words feels like pulling teeth, and the edges of her mouth are starting to hurt from all this smiling. The corners of her eyes, too, have an odd strain tugging at them.

Eli doesn't have to look at Nozomi to know she's lying but she looks up anyway. "But it's not, is it? You told Umi to write that before you told me that you..." She's writing the paper towel in her hands. "I can tell when you're lying, Nozomi."

Nozomi opens her mouth to give another lighthearted protest, but it dies on her tongue at those last words. It's true, it doesn't matter how long she keeps this act up -- in the end, the only one she's trying to kid is herself.

She drops her eyes to the floor, guilty. The smile wavers on her lips.

"Are you scared of me?"

Eli wrings her hand in front of her to stop herself from going to Nozomi. "I'm not scared. Or maybe a little. But not scared that you'll do something or anything I mean..." Now she's frustrated and she rubs at her eyes with one hand. "I--I don't know what I'm feeling. Mostly confused and worried... weird. I feel weird."

She closes her eyes against her hand and leans back, against the sink. Her voice is very quiet. "I'm sorry."

Edited 2014-08-22 00:45 (UTC)

Nozomi hears Eli's words, but they can't seem to quite settle in her mind -- too fleeting, too difficult to fully grasp. All she hears is 'maybe a little' (that is to say: 'yes'). 'Weird'.

She shakes her head. "No, it's my fault. I made everything weird... I'm sorry." Her voice hitches a little near the end, and she feels the sting in her eyes intensify. Nozomi bites at her lower lip to keep it at bay, but she know she won't be able to ward it off for long. Even with how long they've been friends, she can't let herself cry in front of Eli. Least of all now, after the mess she's made of their relationship.

"Um, I should..." she starts weakly, and doesn't even bother finishing the sentence before turning away. Any excuse she'd come up with wouldn't be believable, anyway -- there's no reason to bother.

For all this, how she feels and how she can tell Nozomi feels, Eli's glad they're talking about it. They haven't really talked about it since Nozomi brought it up and even then they didn't talk about it much.

So when Nozomi turns to leave, Eli's immediate reaction is to reach out for her arm and stop her.

"Wait, Nozomi!" Her voice hikes up at the end. Somehow, it's like a dam breaks and Eli has to explain. "We should talk about this, don't you think? Things have been different since that day, but I don't want them to be. I'm just confused and scared, I've never had anyone say something like that to me. And I can't stop thinking about it or if you're thinking about it, and every time you look at me or we touch I just feel this weird thing in my stomach and you're my best friend and I don't know what to do but please don't go!"

Nozomi freezes in place, not from the force of Eli's grasp so much as her words. Her head is hot and heavy, and she doesn't know how to make sense of them -- there's a strange, almost hopeful dip in her stomach, but unable to pinpoint its source, she can only think of it as irrational. Even her own emotions are jumbled up beyond recognition. She doesn't know what to say to any of this -- she doesn't even know what to feel.

But if Eli wants her to stay, she'll stay.

"Th-then..." Nozomi swallows through the hot bile climbing up her throat, still not turning back around. "What am I supposed to do?"

Edited 2014-08-22 01:54 (UTC)

"I--" she starts, searching for something to say. "I don't know. I feel like we've lost something, and I don't want that."

Eli's still holding onto Nozomi, and even though she knows she has no reason to anymore, she doesn't let go.

"I feel like I want to talk about it more but I don't know what there is to talk about."

That makes the two of them, then. Nozomi exhales through her nose, shaky and shallow, rooted stiffly in place.

Something in her shifts with discomfort, even though she knows it shouldn't. It's wrong of her to, and yet she can't help thinking -- if Eli really doesn't want anything to change, then why...

"... You never come to my house anymore."

Eli feels as if her nerves freeze, almost like she knew eventually Nozomi would ask that and she was dreading it. She doesn't really know how to answer it either.

"Well we were busy, and it just didn't seem like..." she stops, and lets out a harsh exhale. She shouldn't make excuses, not now. Not with Nozomi. "I'm sorry. That was really wrong on my part. I think I was still just thinking through all this. But I do want things to go back to how they were. Including that."

"Okay," Nozomi murmurs. She should be happy with this. It's what she wanted all along. If they could just go back to being normal friends, it's really more than anything she could've asked for, and yet...

And yet her shoulders shake, and the sob wrangles its way from her throat before she has the chance to bite it back.

Eli feels that not in her throat grow the size of a big rock when Nozomi starts crying. She brings up her other hand to her back, wanting to comfort, but stops just short. What could she possibly offer Nozomi right now, when she is the very reason she's crying. She feels her own eyes watering.

In this moment, Eli has never hated herself more.

"I'm so sorry, Nozomi." Without another thought, Eli pulls Nozomi to her and wraps her arms around her. "Please don't cry."

Nozomi doesn't want to be crying, either. But once the first tears spill out there's no stopping them, no matter how incessantly she wipes at her eyes.

She doesn't want to be like this. She hates being this selfish. And though Eli undoubtedly wouldn't be holding her right now if she understood the full extent of how she felt, Nozomi sinks into her hold all the same.

"I am thinking about it," she answers the question Eli never really asked, voice small and choked between sniffs. "All the time."

Eli can't stop shaking and she doesn't know if it's really her or Nozomi. They're both just crying and holding each other in the bathroom and while she's sure it's a strange sight she wouldn't care if anyone saw them.

She doesn't even feel like letting Nozomi at her admission, and simply pulls her closer.

"I'm sorry," is all she keeps saying. She doesn't know what else to say. "I'm sorry." All the smiles and laughter, this whole time Nozomi was really forcing herself. Her voice is quiet against Nozomi. "It's okay. Me too."

Nozomi shakes her head at every one of Eli's apologies. "It's my fault," she repeats, one time more for every 'sorry'. She doesn't know if it's okay for her to hold her, but Nozomi can't stand to feel Eli quake against her back for much more than this -- before long, she caves, turning around and pressing her to her. Her nose squashes uncomfortably against the side of Eli's neck.

Her heart twists at that whimpered little 'me too', as if slanting sideways in her chest.

"It's not the same, Elichi..."

Eli just holds onto Nozomi tighter when she turns around, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and burying her nose into her hair. She had t realized just how long it'd been since they'd held each other, like they used to. Nozomi who hugged her and held her hand, shared everything with her. Had stayed behind for her.

"How isn't it the same, when we've both missed each other so much? It was my fault, I pulled away, when I shouldn't have."

Nozomi's blunt nails dig into the back of Eli's shirt as her fingers clench, helpless frustration bubbling up her throat. How is it the same? Does Eli really not realize? Has she forgotten about her feelings altogether?

"Because I want to kiss you!"

Nozomi's words ring in her mind.

There it is. That's the difference.

She'd never thought about kissing Nozomi. Had never really thought about kissing anyone, really. But then she also had never wanted to be so close to someone as she does with Nozomi. She doesn't want to lose her.

She created this distance between them and it feels like her worst mistake.

Eli breathes against Nozomi, shaky but determined. "Okay. You can kiss me."

"E-eh?" Nozomi starts, tears halting from sheer surprise. She pulls back a bit to look at Eli's face, blue eyes shining with new, yet-unshed tears, cheeks splotchy and wet with the old ones. In almost three years, this is the most miserable Nozomi's ever seen her, and knowing she's the one to cause it makes her stomach twist up in guilty knots.

And after all this, she has the nerve to consider taking her up on that offer for even a second?

"No, um..." Nozomi stammers through her fluster, shaking her head. She can feel her face growing warm beneath the sticky layer of half-dried tears. "I just got carried away. I shouldn't have... sorry."

In their years as best friends, they've never had a moment like this. They've shared very personal things, had moments where both were crying, but never something like this. Like a desperation to fix something that neither know how to even start figuring out.

Eli just wants it to stop.

She brings her hands to Nozomi's cheeks and cups them, thumbs brushing away at the wetness. "Nozomi, you're my best friend, and I mean that. The best friend I've ever had." Eli's lips shake, as she tries very hard to speak as clearly as she can through her sobs. She speaks slowly as her shoulders heave.

"When you told me your feelings, I all felt so muddled, I just had never had someone tell me that. I'd never thought that. But I... I think I wouldn't mind being kissed by you. I've never cared more about anyone."

Nozomi sees the earnestness in Eli's eyes, and her chest heaves, as if pulled down by an invisible weight. All Eli wants is to make this better. She wants them to be okay again, for her to be happy... but she doesn't want to kiss her, not really. That much is plain to see in her words. She's only doing this for Nozomi's sake.

Nozomi is grateful, but she's not that selfish.

... Maybe just a little bit.

Cupping Eli's chin, she guides it down as she stretches onto her tiptoes, and presses a kiss to her tear-stained cheek.

"Thanks, Elichi," she says, and finally pulls away from her hold.

Eli feels every muscle tense when Nozomi moves closer. Her heart beats faster and a small gasp escapes her lips. Nozomi's going to kiss her. Everything slows until the moment Nozomi only kisses her cheek. Her lips are soft and warm even in that all-too-quick contact.

Then Nozomi pulls away.

Eli feels her head reel a bit. She feels her whole body sink, that cold, clammy chill that lets you know: something just went wrong.

She doesn't have the strength or forethought to not let go of Nozomi, and as she slips away from her grasp, Eli feels so many other things slip away along with her.

She's left standing, arms half-outstretched, eyes wet and wide and confused.

She's just made a huge mistake.

Her voice is small, like a child scared to call out too loudly. "N-Nozomi?"

Edited 2014-08-22 15:07 (UTC)

Nozomi doesn't move too far, and in the face of Eli's weakness, finds the strength to summon that calm, patient smile back to her lips. She brushes at Eli's bangs with two fingers, gently, as if to say: it's okay. You don't have to push yourself.

"What is it?"

Eli brings her hands to her face before it contorts into an ugly sob.

Eli doesn't know how to respond to that question. She doesn't know what's wrong, or what's right, or what to do or think. She just hates what's happening, hates herself for not knowing what to do. Maybe also hates that Nozomi had to say anything and change everything.

As much as they try things will never go back.

Eli cries into her hands.